Roblox ruined my life
I never had much interest in Roblox, so I never really saw myself playing it and yet here we are. My little cousin who was about 7 at the time didn't have any friends, so he spent most of his time on technology, and on Roblox in particular. My family occasionally had gatherings where I would see everyone including him, but he usually kept to himself and barely spoke to anyone. My parents eventually had enough and told me to connect with him in some way but I had no idea how. I walked over to him and asked what he was doing, and he told me he was playing some game called "Roblox". I told him I had never heard of it and he gave me a brief explanation that made very little sense, but he was talking so I just rolled with the punches. He asked if I wanted to play, and eager to finally connect with him, I said yes. He showed me the controls and I started to play, and I actually had some fun! After around ten minutes of letting me play, he told me it was his turn and I proceeded to watch him play. By the end of the night, we agreed that we would play Roblox together every other day and I would make an account when I got home. So, like I had promised, I returned home and made an account under the name of “Vade”. Vade had been a nickname given to me by my friends, so I rolled with that knowing that no one would know who I was. That night we played until 10:30, and I felt happy by the time it was all over. I told my parents that I finally found a way to connect to my little cousin, they told me that they were glad I was so willing to help him be more social. I went to sleep that night thinking all about how much fun I had, and I quickly felt my eyelids grow heavy. I was soon fast asleep. I had a habit of having sleep paralysis, but I had gotten good at identifying it so it scared me much less. This habit started when I was around 7, and now that I was 13 I had no problem realizing what was real and what wasn’t. That night I woke up to a dark ceiling, and figured the strange occurrences would begin soon but instead I realized something else… I could move. Normally when I was having sleep paralysis I couldn’t move a muscle, but this time I could move my whole body. My first instinct was to check if I was dreaming by thinking I could fly, but nothing changed. I was still lying in bed, staring at the same dark ceiling. This wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t paralysis, so I started looking around. Nothing was wrong, but I felt like I heard something coming from a different room in the house. I got up and started to move towards the noise, and soon realized it was the quiet hum of the computer running. This didn’t freak me out as this was a normal occurrence and I often awoke in the morning to find that I had left the computer on, so I walked over and was about to turn it off when I noticed something. Roblox was pulled up on the computer. It took a second for me to realize that this was odd, seeing as how I always close all the tabs open at the time when I log off, but I just ignored it and closed the tab, turned off the computer, and went back to bed. I woke up the next morning and started to play Roblox just to see what kinds of games there were, and I was ecstatic to see that there was a horror category in games. I’ve always been a big fan of scary stories and movies, so seeing this made me want to play for hours. I began to play each game, looking for something especially fun to show my friends (They were big into horror as well). I played game after game, copy after copy, and found very little that really interested me, but one game piqued my interest. It was called something along the lines of “Not scary at all, keep scrolling”, but it had over 4 thousand likes and a 4-star rating. All that was shown in the picture displaying the gameplay was a crappy model of slenderman, so at first, I laughed but then got curious. I started up the game, and all I saw was a dark room with a few other usernames but nothing else. They all started chatting, asking if anyone knew how to get out of the room or find some sort of light switch, but I was just as in the dark as they were. I spent around ten minutes walking around trying to find a secret exit but to no avail. As I was about to leave the game, another user popped in and told us he knew how to get out so we followed his name, and eventually he led us out. He told us that there were a few levels, but he never got past 5 because it was “Too scary” for him. The next few rooms were simple platforming challenges with poorly drawn pumpkins and skeletons on the walls. I had finally reached level 5, and I was expecting more platforms but instead found something much more strange. I was in a bedroom. Now, most things in Roblox are poorly animated and most of the textures look like crap, but something about this room was much more different. The textures looked very real as if this room was taken straight out of a picture. As I moved around the room, I noticed that all of the other players in the game had left and I was left alone. I started to inspect the room and made a horrifying realization… this was MY room. Every detail matched perfectly, but there was one thing that scared me more than that. On the bed, in full detail laid a blocky version of me, with the name “Vade” hovering above the body. I should have quit then, but for some reason, I felt like I needed some explanation as to what was going on, so I moved to the bed. Nothing happened. But then I heard it, a small noise from the other room. I moved my character out of the room and explored the rest of the house, which to my dismay looked exactly like mine in every way. When I got to the room that the computer was in I froze. Someone was on the computer, playing a game. I tried to move my character closer, but the game stopped responding. I had lost all control of my character and there was nothing I could do. I watched in horror as the figure at the computer turned, and revealed… me. At this point, I was ready to get off of the game but the keyboard still didn’t work. As I pressed button after button, a chat bubble appeared over my head in the game. All it said was, “Look behind you”. At this moment I broke out in a cold sweat, too scared to move and now completely numb. I sat there in silence for five minutes before finally regaining the courage to move, and with absolutely no way of knowing if I was safe… I turned around. There was nothing to be seen. I sighed in relief and thought about how stupid I must have been to think there was something behind me, and turned to face the screen once more. The in-game me was gone. Absolutely nowhere to be seen. I panicked for a moment and thought of all the possible explanations but none came to mind. Thoughts swarmed my mind in a moment of panic. How is this possible? Who’s doing this? What kind of sick freak would make such a game? All of these thoughts were halted by the sound of footsteps in the room behind me. I was scared for my life, and there seemed to be no way of getting out of this, so in one quick motion I turned around and got ready to fight. Standing there was a tall black figure. I tried to call out to someone but it was useless. All that came out was a small choking sound. The figure leaned over to me and put its long finger over its mouth and whispered: "It's okay child, I won't hurt you... if you come quietly". I had no way to call for help, and as I looked around for something to use as a weapon, all I found was a pencil. I grabbed the pencil and drove it into the figures face, hoping I hit something vital, but to my dismay, it merely grazed it. It grabbed me by the neck, and began to yell "This could have been so much easier!" The last thing I remember is a large fist flying towards my face followed by a burst of pain... then nothing. When I woke up, I was outside of my house which was now burning in a large blaze. It took a while before I realized what was happening, but even after regaining consciousness I didn't do anything. What could I do? As I looked around to see if anyone was outside trying to put out the fire, I saw something that terrified me. My family had been murdered, and all that remained of then was their heads on pikes in the front yard. I looked away and started to vomit, and it was then that I saw it. A note. It read "Thanks for playing my game! I'm sorry you lost, but it's fine... we all make mistakes sometimes, and this one was yours." I threw the note down and started to cry. "Why is this happening?" I screamed. There was no response. I looked around once more to see if someone, ANYONE, was trying to help... but no one was there. When the authorities arrived, they saw that I was the one survivor and assumed I had done this. I still don't know why this all happened, but I'm sure I'll get an explanation someday.